Low-temperature depolymerization of polysiloxanes with iron catalysis

The easy accessibility and high adjustability of polymers mainly accounts for the great impact of such materials on modern society. Besides this great success, an important matter is the accumulation of large amounts of end-of-life polymers, which are mainly deposited in landfills or converted by thermal recycling or down-cycling to low-quality materials. In contrast to that, the depolymerization of end-of-life polymers to monomers, which can be applied as feedstock in polymerization chemistry for high-quality polymers, is only carried out for a small fraction of waste. Polysiloxanes are extensively used in a diverse array of technological applications. Based on intrinsic properties of polymers, depolymerization is challenging and only a few high-temperature or less environment-friendly processes have been reported. In this regard, we have set up a capable low-temperature protocol for the depolymerization of poly(dimethylsiloxane) in the presence of catalytic amounts of simple iron salts in combination with different depolymerization reagents. The application of benzoyl fluoride, benzoyl chloride/potassium fluoride, or benzoic anhydride/potassium fluoride as depolymerization reagents affords difluorodimethylsilane or 1,3-difluoro-1,1,3,3-tetramethyldisilxanes as products, which are interesting building blocks for the synthesis of new polymers and allow an overall recycling of polysiloxanes.